


Everyone Needs Sleep

by SuaveOtter



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-12
Updated: 2018-11-12
Packaged: 2019-08-22 13:31:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16598843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuaveOtter/pseuds/SuaveOtter
Summary: Montgomery Alabama 1955 and the Doctor rents them a motel room. Two beds, one couch, four people.





	Everyone Needs Sleep

They were going to save Rosa Parks. How cool was that? Well, save her from the crisis she doesn’t know about, they can’t do anything about the rest of it. The Doctor was very firm on that. But that’s alright, or it will be alright. All works out in the end, sort of. It’s a work in progress, but it’s progressing, and they needed to make sure that a ton of that progress would start here and keep moving forwards from this point in time. 

After laying out the plan for tomorrow ‘team TARDIS’ had packed it in for the night. To avoid suspicion they had only been able to get the one room, but two beds and a couch was better than an alleyway. Or where ever the ‘good’ people of Alabama expected black travelers to sleep. They probably didn’t have anywhere specific other than ‘not here’. It’s not like most racists care about the people enough to give them an alternative. They just want them out of sight. 

Ryan had taken the couch, after a quiet few sentences to Graham. Yaz had only heard Ryan mention Graham’s back, but it wasn’t hard to figure out what the boys were setting up. She would have offered to take the couch, but then one of them would have probably taken the floor. Boys. The Doctor had made some huffing noises along the lines of not needing much sleep but didn’t say that she wouldn’t be sleeping. None of them had been quite sure how to interpret that, especially when the woman immediately behaved as though that had settled something. 

Over the last hour Yaz had watched as the Doctor had slowed down. Earlier, when they had all been awake, she had been literally bouncing between the bed to write on the wall and the information on the table. The main plan was set late in the night and Graham was the first to say that they should all get to sleep. While the rest of the team was getting ready for bed the Doctor had kicked off her boots in an effort to not clod about and wake anyone up but otherwise shown no signs of slowing. Ryan had asked about sleeping arrangements, which caused some momentary confusion in the Doctor about the option of bunk beds due to his phrasing. But they’d quickly established that there were no bunk beds, and soon after both the men were fast asleep. Yaz on the other hand was not feeling particularly tired. She was sort of in that between state, too tired to get up and do something, but not tired enough to sleep. So she watched. As the doctor paced and grabbed papers off the table, then paced less and less till she was just standing by the table making quiet sounds as she worked. Then sitting and twisting, almost violently at times, to check the timeline on the wall. Before moving to sit leaning against the arm of the couch so that she could access the stuff on the table and see the wall at the same time. 

The most recent change was that she had started yawning about 5 minutes ago. Or at least Yaz assumed it was yawning. The first time it had happened the Doctor had seemed very surprised that her jaw was opening so wide, the second time she had made an odd sound that Yaz took to be frustration as she tried to keep her mouth closed. Right now, the third time she seemed to be attempting to use her knees to assist in her effort of stopping her jaw from opening. Yaz decided it might be time to step in. 

“Doctor?” Her voice came out even quieter than she had meant it to be, disuse turning a whisper into a barely defined breath. Still the doctor startled, knocking her elbow into the couch and her foot into the table. Ryan made a noise, snapping their attention to him as they waited to see if he would wake. He didn’t, just shifted a little, and the Doctor returned her wide eyes to Yaz. 

“Hey, thought you were asleep, I didn’t wake ya did I?” Her concern was sweet, and she seemed very worried that she might have disturbed her rest. 

“Naw, just can’t quite seem to sleep yet.” The Doctor nodded, bobbing her head with a funny little wiggle that dropped her hair into her eyes. 

“Ah, blasted stuff, don’t usually have it this long.”

Yaz smiled at the aside, “You growing it out?” 

The Doctor scrunched her nose in confusion and tugged the ends of her hair out in front of her face. “Can it grow in another direction?” 

Yaz let out a small giggle, “Ah, I guess not.” 

The Doctor gave an odd look before launching herself across the room. She stayed low, as though by not standing up fully she might have a better chance of not disturbing the boys. Settling on the floor again, back against the night stand, head suddenly very close to Yaz’s, she stretched her legs out in front and leaned her shoulder into the mattress. Yaz had to shift her head just slightly to keep the Doctor’s hair from tickling her nose. 

“You think I should?” Perhaps Yaz was more tired than she had thought, because she wasn’t following. Not that it wasn’t becoming a common occurrence around the Doctor. 

“Should wot?”

“Change ma hair.” The Doctor had started running her fingers through the blonde mass now, appearing grey in the darkness. Shifting it this way and that before jamming her fingers up both sides at once forming a disheveled mohawk. The addition of a huge grin on her face when she turned to Yaz set off a fit of giggles that she fought hard to keep quiet. 

“Your hair looks great Doctor, I was just curious ‘cause you said you usually have it even shorter.” The Doctor drops her hands, making an exaggerated expression of understanding. Though all of her expressions seem exaggerated now that Yaz is considering it. 

“Ah well yeah, usually shorter, tha’s what happens when -” Though she continued speaking the rest of the sentence was lost to Yaz. As a fourth yawn had taken control, and despite the Doctor’s best efforts at simply acting as though she wasn’t yawning, the words were lost to an uncooperatively gaping jaw. Yaz felt her own jaw mimic the motion, stupidly contagious yawns are. 

The Doctor had continued her thought uninterrupted, now going on about the fashionable hairstyle of some century. She assumed it was in the future due to the particular colours that were popular. 

“Doctor?” Sometimes it was best to just interrupt the rambling. Lucky the Doctor never seemed offended. “Why don’t you get some sleep? I know you said you don’t need much but seems like you might need some now.” Did you have to break it gently to an alien that they should stop fighting sleep? For some reason it seemed appropriate. 

“Ah, well, I suppose I am a little tired now. Must still be sorting myself. Usually I’d be fine for a while yet.” 

She made no effort to move, so Yaz decided she should say something, else the woman might sleep right there on the floor right propped up against a table. “You can-” don’t say bunk, “..share with me.” That got more of the Doctor’s attention than she thought it would. Suddenly she was starting directly into wide dark eyes. “I thought…” The Doctor cut herself off and looked over to Ryan. “Don’t humans?” 

Though not completely sure what the Doctor had heard Ryan say it was most likely an attempt to politely avoid the fact that he wasn’t comfortable sleeping in the same bed as his not quite grandfather. 

“Ah, don’t worry about what Ryan said, boys and all. Besides where else you ‘gonna sleep, the floor?” The Doctor looked down at the carpet that was so thin you could feel the cold of the cement with your shoes off and shrugged in agreement.

“Alright, thanks Yaz.” She then proceeded to attempt to crawl into the bed from where she was. Despite the fact that Yaz was still occupying that space. 

“Wait Doctor, your coat.”

“What about it?” She stopped with her torso on the bed, legs dangling oddly onto the floor. Ridiculous. Didn’t this woman know how to sleep? Yaz herself hadn’t taken much off, but her shoes, coat, belt, jewelry and other things that would dig into her while sleeping had still been removed. It would seem this concept would need to be explained. 

“You’ll be uncomfortable if you leave it on, same with the braces, and your earring.” Yaz quickly looked her over but was mostly going on memory of what she’d been wearing. 

The Doctor looked down at herself, “Oh, right, I forgot. Thanks, Yaz, always so thoughtful.” 

Yaz shifted over to the other side of the bed while the Doctor removed the mentioned articles, as well as her socks, and her t-shirt. She then lifted the blankets and slid inside, spending a good few minutes wriggling under the covers. Yaz barely managed to stay out of the way. Just when she’d thought the Doctor was settled the woman flung herself around so that she was facing Yaz. She was very close now, but more solemn than before, quiet beyond how they had to whisper. 

“I’m sorry Yaz.” 

“For what?” 

The Doctor sighed and shifted down the bed. “For bringing you guys here in this time, for not getting you home, I usually try to stick away from bad stuff travelers can’t do anything about.” 

Yaz grabbed the Doctors hand to stop her before she fidgeted her way through the nearly bare sheet. “Hey, it’s not like you meant to. You tried quite a few times to get us home before getting all caught up in this. And _this_ ” here she gestured with both hands, one still trapping the Doctor’s fingers to her palm, “This is pretty important stuff. It wouldn’t feel right to just leave.” 

She got a small accepting smile for her effort, it would have to do. “Now,” She tried to add some light-hearted severity to her voice, the Doctor mirrored her with an eyebrow waggle and chin tilt. 

“Time for bed, we have to make sure Rosa Parks gets kicked off a bus tomorrow.” There’s a sentence she’d never imagined saying before. With a smirk and squeeze of her fingers in return the Doctor released her hand, rolled onto her back and closed her eyes. Yaz lifted herself just slightly, there was no way after all that the ‘alien’ just instantly falls asleep. But without disturbing her there was no way to tell that she wasn’t sleeping. Fancy that. 

* * *

Yaz woke to an odd sensation. She was warm. Very warm. Being warm wasn’t that odd, she had a tendency to wrap herself tightly into blankets before falling asleep only to wake up a few degrees too hot and have to kick them all off. The odd thing was that she could feel the edge of the blanket at her waist. So why was she so warm? 

The answer to this question came a second later. In thinking her question, she had started to roll, just slightly, onto her back. Which is when she became aware that something very solid and very warm, was very tightly pressed up against her back. The Doctor. 

Carefully opening her eyes, she took in the dimly lit wall in front of her. The slight glow of the neon sign breaking through the curtain was the only light in the room, so it was still night. No more than a few hours past midnight probably. She decided to move slowly, not wanting to wake herself up anymore lest she not be able to fall back to sleep. Looking down herself she found what she had previously thought to be the edge of the cover. The Doctor’s arm was slung over her hip, fingers clutching the bunched fabric of her shirt against the mattress. Turning a little farther she could just make out the ends of light hair brushing her shoulder. Though she could feel the figure of the other woman pressed against her, it was difficult, in that sleep addled and barely lit moment to remember why that might be something she should alter. Instead she pulled her nerveless arm out from underneath her, brushed the edge of the blanket back so it was just barely covering her, and closed her eyes again. 

* * *

When she woke in the morning, she had only the odd sense that her back had recently been warmer than it was currently, despite being completely tucked under the blankets.


End file.
